


Acts of Kindness

by Sholio



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Hugs, Missing Scene, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26790550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: A missing scene for the Abigail and Hewlett scene in 4x10.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: Hold Me: A Comfort Prompfest





	Acts of Kindness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sovay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sovay/gifts).



> Written for Sovay's Turn prompt [Anybody hugs Edmund](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1347813.html?thread=20034021#cmt20034021) at [Comfort Fest.](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1347813.html)

Confronted with the quill and paper Major Hewlett had pressed into her hands, Abigail found that her ability to put words on that blank page had deserted her. What would she say; what _could_ she say, either to her son or to the man she had finally managed to admit that she loved, when it might be too late? Her future suddenly hung on these words, such a dreadfully tenuous thread to be their sole hope of reuniting in a new land.

"Oh, apologies," the major said, and hastily cleared a space on the corner of his cluttered desk, giving her room to work. He then dragged up a chair for her, to her flustered embarrassment.

But it was more than that; she found her hand on the quill trembling slightly. She knew it wasn't a trap, or at least she presumed not — but she couldn't help glancing nervously at the major. It was so deeply ingrained, hiding her ability to read and write. To pen words in front of a white stranger was almost too much for her.

After a moment, recognizing her discomfort (if not, perhaps, its source), the major turned back to the task he'd been engaged in when she had interrupted him, packing books and papers neatly in a trunk.

It was a little easier to sort out her thoughts when he wasn't watching. She dashed off a few quick lines, desperately hoping she had correctly remembered the name of the town in Nova Scotia that Akinbode had told her about. Hoping that Akinbode would be able to read it somehow, or find someone to read it to him; hoping that he was still with Cicero, or would be able to find him before heading north...

There were so many reasons why they might never see each other again. It was almost too much to hope that they would.

But without hope, there was nothing.

She blew on the ink to dry it, and hesitated long moments before folding it. There was so much more she had to say, but nothing she could say in a letter that she must entrust into the hand of a white man, to find its way to the two people who meant more to her than anything else in the world.

She stared at it for a moment, and then carefully wrote Akinbode's name on it — she could only guess at its spelling; she had not only never seen it written down, but doubted that anyone ever had written it — in care of Anna Strong at Washington's camp. She had never actually addressed a letter before; she had never properly sent a letter, only the hidden messages carefully folded into her gifts for Cicero. But she had seen plenty of André's correspondence, as well as the Strongs' business letters. 

And then she just held it, her hand shaking. Such a small piece of paper, to trust all her hopes to.

"Are you finished, then?" the major asked, and she looked up abruptly, and nodded. "Here," he said, and took it gently from her hand. "I will see it safely delivered."

It was the gentleness that undid her, the carefulness. It was all too much. Her emotions had been like the plunging deck of a ship today, up and then down — fear and hope and despair mingling in equal measure, her last hope in the Arnolds dashed, only to have salvation dangled before her from an unexpected source, then snatched away with the ice-water shock of knowing she was found out, then returned to her thricefold...

"Thank you," she said, her voice breaking, and as he stepped back with the letter, she stepped forward, and hugged him.

He stiffened. So did she, in a quick flush of terror. He didn't move and neither did she, and for a moment they were frozen like that; she didn't know how to extract herself, and then he ever so slightly relaxed a little, and brought up a hand to give her back a very cautious pat.

She pulled her arms back and stepped away so abruptly she stumbled into a chair. He quickly caught her with a hand on her arm, and for a moment they just looked at each other; he looked startled and a little baffled. And then he smiled, hardly more than a quirk of the corner of his mouth, and let go of her arm with a little pat as if to smooth out her rumpled sleeve.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking another step back and trying not to trip over anything this time. "I was ... overcome. I'm sorry, Major."

"It's all right. Truly." He started to tuck the letter into the trunk with his writing things, then appeared to reconsider and tucked it into his jacket instead. The smile he gave her was a brief but beautiful thing. "It has been some time since I was hugged by a lovely woman. It is not a hardship."

There was nothing mocking about it. He seemed quite sincere. Abigail gathered her skirt in two tight handfuls and got herself under control before she raised her head and met his slightly embarrassed but ever so slightly amused gaze. She was not a servant anymore; she was a free woman who was going to go to live in a town where no one had ever known her enslaved, where she would have her own household. And so she looked him in the eye and said, "Thank you, Major. It is a great kindness you're doing for me." Her voice broke again, to her dismay. "A very great kindness."

He looked at her for a moment, and then his mouth quirked a little. "Perhaps there should have been more kindness in my life, Abigail. I have had precious little opportunity for it lately. And if my last act in this country is an act of kindness, I hope it will set the tone for what's to come."


End file.
